Day 16 – A Stroll Around Old Town Brunico

Jan 29, 2024

Today’s Adventure

Cindy and I decided that some continued R&R would be appropriate for Day 16 of our adventure in the Dolomites. With that in mind we boarded the 10:50 AM train heading west down the Val Pusteria towards Franzenfeste. We hopped off about 40 minutes later in Brunico (‘Bruneck’ in German) to do some exploring.

Brunico is an old town with first recorded settlement dating to 1256. In spite of that age it has a fairly hip, young vibe – maybe it’s the influence of the huge Kronplatz ski resort on the outskirts of town that helps to make it feel that way.

With a population of around 17,000 people Brunico is the largest town in the Val Pusteria. Like many of the towns in this region it has a charming old town pedestrian zone, some lovely churches, great access to outdoor activities, and even a castle. But Brunico is also large enough to have some significant industry other than tourism and that makes it rather unique.

Brunico is the home of both the engineering campus for the University of Bolzano and an automotive-focused high tech incubator called the NOI. These two resources have helped to attract a number of supporting businesses, so Brunico definitely has a fairly large financial and technical footprint for what is in fact a relatively small town.

We’ve passed through Brunico a number of times during past visits but have never spent much time there. That said we’ve looked at it fairly seriously as a base camp for prior adventures in the Dolomites because of the central location as well as excellent rail and bus access. We thought that this would be a good opportunity to take a first-hand look.

After leaving the Bahnhof we walked the length of the old town pedestrian mall and did some window shopping along the way before stopping for lunch. Our choice today based on Cindy’s internet research was a highly-rated pizzeria called Der Keller, which you can probably guess is German for ‘The Cellar’.

From street level we went down a winding flight of stairs into the dining room so there was no doubt where the restaurant’s name came from! After perusing the menu we picked out two pizzas that we could share. The first, called the Laziale, included tomato, mozzarella, romanesco artichoke, pecorino romano cheese, and crispy pork cheek. The second, called the Marchigiana, had tomato, mozzarella, fresh luganega sausage, a free-range egg, and fresh peppers. As usual the pizzas paired nicely with a pair of cold Forst pale lagers.

After a relaxed lunch we walked up the hill for a closer look at the Castello di Brunico or Bruneck Castle. The obviously strategic knoll gave us a nice view back over the town, across the Val Pusteria, and into the mountains beyond. We then walked very carefully back down the trail into town as it was covered with a challenging mix of packed snow and ice.

Once back into the old town we reversed our earlier course and found our way to the Bahnhof for the train back to San Candido. On the way home we hopped off the train in Dobbiaco to visit the tourist office and look for some cross country skiing swag (successfully!). We then caught the next train to San Candido – there’s usually one every 30 minutes so this impromptu detour was no problem.

If all goes to plan we’ll be back into hiking mode tomorrow for one last outing here in the Dolomites. We’ll then change locations on Wednesday to a small town in the mountains just northwest of Innsbruck, Austria 🇦🇹. It will be our second visit to this charming resort town – the first was in 2012.

For Innichen’s main page click here.

For Seefeld’s main page click here.

For the entire trip’s main page click here.